Introduction   Sound around the world   Addicted to noise   Sound in the future		Sound around the world INTRODUCTION A few hundred years ago, silence was an everyday occurrence just about anywhere on Earth. Now, in the world's cities, and many rural areas too, it's a luxury no amount of money can buy. It has become a truly global problem with consequences as far-reaching as global warming. Standardisation of farming and industrial practices and changes to people’s life-styles have made our world sonically poorer, as whole sound-worlds have disappeared, including languages, street-cries, workshop noises. It’s not hard to imagine a situation in the near future when one city will sound like another. See how noise is spreading around the globe, and witness some of the acoustic losses we’ve sustained over the last century. STREET SELLING The street-cries of the 1930's New York fish seller Clyde 'Kingfish' Smith, preserved in Washington's Library of Congress, show the incredible sophistication of this man's selling methods. He would alter the text and melody of his sales-songs according to the country of origin of his customers. The colourful world of street-sellers has all but disappeared in the West, and it’s hard to imagine a marketing campaign today so closely tailored to the individual consumer. But even if there was another Clyde Kingfish today, someone with his musicality and sonic invention, would we hear him above the roar of traffic in New York, Paris or New Delhi? EXTINCT LANGUAGES Linguistic experts say that every fortnight a language becomes extinct, and that of the over 6000 languages spoken today, half, and probably nearer three- quarters, will be lost forever before the 21st century is out. This is because there are a handful of languages which are becoming dominant as the rest are driven to extinction, not least because parents everywhere want their children to learn the tongue which gives them the biggest chance of success. That usually means a majority, globally-spoken language such as English, Spanish or Mandarin Chinese. It is not just the unique words and meanings that die when a language vanishes: a distinctive sound-world, often developed over thousands of years, dies with it. Globalisation leaves a linguistic cemetery in its wake, constantly reducing the variety of sounds we use to communicate. Anthony Traill from South Africa recently found a 1936 wax cylinder recordings of now-extinct Khoisan languages of the bushmen. The exquisite sounds of this lullaby make you wonder how high a price will we end up paying for the economic success of our children. "If diversity is a prerequisite for successful humanity, then the preservation of linguistic diversity is essential, for language lies at the heart of what it means to be human". David Crystal in 'Language Death' "Most of the currently receding languages will disappear without even being recorded". Matthias Brenzinger, University of Cologne, Germany SPOT THAT PLANE Do you imagine Alaska in the far North-West of the American continent as the great unspoilt wilderness? There are very few places on Earth today untouched by the noise of machines, and planes are among the worst offenders. They spread their noise very far and wide, and as there are only a handful of plane factories, they all sound much the same. We are already totally encircled by plane noise, that was the conclusion of The 9th, a global sound-shot of our planet designed by the Dutch sonographer Floris van Manen. On September 9th, 1999 anyone with recording equipment was asked to make two 9-minute recordings of their surroundings, one at 9am, the other at 9pm. The project illustrated how even remote corners of the wilderness are affected by the sounds of modern machines. MAPPING CHANGE There are several fascinating projects which document long-term changes to our sound-world through recordings. One of them is the pan-European study Acoustic Environments in Change, began in 1975 by Canadian sound researchers, which set out to map the more subtle changes that have been happening over many years in six villages scattered all over the continent. It shows not just the rise of vehicular traffic, but also how many distinctive sounds we're losing: sounds of laundry being washed at public fountains, sounds of a scythe in a wet field in the morning, factory whistles and many more. On the other side of the Atlantic, Tony Schwartz has been recording the district in New York where he lives consistently‚ almost obsessively, for over 50 years. He has made literally thousands of recordings of the streets, shops, taxis and children in his neighbourhood, creating a unique record of the changing sounds of the Big Apple. THE GLOBAL RING-TONE When the telephone first came into use, people were not quite sure what the different tones in the earpiece meant. The producers of Lost and Found Sound, broadcast on National Public Radio in the USA, found some wonderful examples of old dial-tone instructions collected for their programmes. It’s surprising how long it took people to get their bearings when confronted with this new-fangled device. Contrast that with the reaction of the audience at one of this year's BBC Proms concerts in the clip below to a mobile phone ring-tone. The work by Jocelyn Pook quotes the melody of the default Nokia mobile phone ring-tone which seems to follow us wherever we go. In fact Gregg Wagstaff from the UK and Ireland Soundscape Community estimates that the Nokia tune has now become more famous world-wide than the 'Happy Birthday' song. The BBC Proms concert audience certainly recognised it‚ even in a sung form‚ in a split second. CAN YOU HEAR THE TIGER? The Santals, an aboriginal tribe in North-Eastern India, still use listening as a key component of their survival strategy. After all, in the jungle you can hear a large predator or a thief much further away than you can see them. Or, as the Santals put it‚ 'if you can hear the tiger, you are the master. If you only see him, he is'. They insist that their sound environment has to be kept in balance, with the voices of humans, animals and nature co-existing in harmony which they call honeywind. If that balance is upset, they perform complex rituals to restore honeywind to its original state. But the Santals’ traditional way of life is being quickly eroded by the encroachment of modern India. For example, passing trains now completely pulverise the aural space in the village with their noise. According to Andres Bosshard, who has worked with the Santals extensively, worse is to come. Neighbouring settlements are expanding rapidly, bringing with them cars, busses and other machines. Within the next few years this environment will change so much that the Santals’ way of listening to the world will no longer be possible.

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